"Vergasungsapparate" - "Gassing Devices"

Response to "Samuel Crowell"

written by Jamie McCarthyFebruary 1999

A Holocaust-denier who uses the pseudonym "Samuel Crowell" has
prepared a lengthy essay on why there were no Nazi homicidal gas
chambers. Among its many errors is the analysis of
this document,
NO-365, the Wetzel-Lohse letter describing the need for
"Vergasungsapparate" ("gassing devices"). In fact, as we shall see,
these are not mistakes which he makes, but examples of the intellectual
dishonesty which characterizes the denial movement.

...present day arguments in favor of the mass gassing claim rarely
depend on such obvious mistakes, but rather on a second order of
documentation that suggests, without directly attesting, to the
existence of mass gassing. 307

One example concerns a draft memo, the so-called Wetzel-Lohse
correspondence, concerning conditions around Riga, and entered into the
Nuremberg Military Tribunal as NO-365. The draft letter mentions
putting large numbers of Jews into the Labor service, and discusses the
need for building the necessary "Unterkünfte" with the appropriate
"vergasungsapparate". 308[sic] In the context
of the disinfection literature, this is clearly a reference to a Labor
Service hut that would be equipped with the standard Entwesungskammern
for delousing clothing. 309 Yet this same document has
been occasionally put forth as evidence of a homicidal gassing program,
even though there is no material or documentary support for that
interpretation, and even though there never were any gas chambers in
Riga. 310

With the text of the
Wetzel-Lohse letter
in hand, it is not difficult to discover the flaws in Crowell's
argument. They are:

1. Crowell argues that the Unterkünfte referred to are "Labor
Service huts" (and he may be right),
[2]
and asserts without evidence that the Vergasungsapparate, the gassing
devices, must necessarily be delousing rooms in these huts (and here he
is wrong). He simply has no evidence for this assertion.

If he would like to bolster this claim of delousing chambers, it is
very simple: he need only find another two or three documents which
refer to such chambers using the word "Vergasungsapparate." If the word
has an ordinary meaning, it should not be hard to find in ordinary
documents.

2. Crowell ignores Viktor Brack, and thus ignores that he was
involved with the T-4 program.

Brack held no minor post. The Chancellery of the Führer was a
means for Hitler to delegate power - a private, hidden means, unlike
the Presidential Chancellery and the Reich Chancellery - and it was
divided into five central offices with various responsibilities. The
second office, Central Office II, was headed by Brack, who thus was
only one intermediary away from reporting directly to Hitler.

In the summer of 1939, the head of the Chancellery met with Hitler,
was told to begin "euthanizing" (killing) handicapped adults as well as
children, and handed off the details to Brack and his Office. Brack
created the T4 organization to secretly conduct adult euthanasia in
Germany, created the administrative structure which ran it, and hired
the people to fill the positions he created. Gas chambers played an
important role in the mass murder of the handicapped.

In mid-1941, if a German officer wanted someone with experience in
delousing gas chambers or air-raid shelters, there were many other
choices. But if he wanted someone who knew about homicidal gas
chambers, one of the most logical persons to talk to would be Viktor
Brack. What other possible explanation can there be for Brack - or more
precisely "his people" - to travel to Riga?

3. Crowell claims that there were never any gas chambers in Riga -
not any stationary ones, this is true. (One should not fail to be
unimpressed by his footnote: "noted by all revisionists."
Holocaust-deniers frequently cite each other as having "proved" one
thing or another, but unlike historians, theirs is a closed circle, not
peer-reviewed, of dishonest researchers who share biases.)

The devices that ended up being constructed for use at Riga were
mobile gas vans. According to Kogon et al.:
[3]

In the middle of December 1941, three gas vans were brought from
Berlin to Riga and put at the disposal of the BdS of the Eastern
Territories. There were two small Diamond vans and one large Saurer
van. Two drivers, Karl Gebl and Erich Gnewuch, arrived from Berlin
before Christmas 1941. At the beginning of 1942 they were dispatched
with two gas vans to the commander of the BdS regional office for
Byelorussia, located in Minsk and known, like the other regional
offices, by the initials KdS. Gnewuch said in his deposition, "On
orders from my department, I too drove a gas van from Berlin to Minsk.
These vans had been constructed with a lockable cargo compartment, like
a moving van. It could hold about fifty to sixty Jews. I personally
gassed Jews in this gas van." 11[...]

Dr. August Becker, who was charged by the Reich Security Main Office
with supervising the use of the gas vans in the occupied territories of
the Soviet Union, saw one of these vehicles in Riga in June 1942 at the
end of a tour of inspection. Another eyewitness, a Jew from Riga named
Mendel Vulfovich, testified on 9 December 1944 before a Soviet
commission investigating Nazi war crimes: "In February 1942, I saw with
my own eyes two thousand elderly Jews from Germany, men and women,
being loaded into special gas vans. These vans were painted gray-green
and had a large closed cargo compartment with hermetically sealed
doors. All those inside were killed by gas." 15

It is probable that gas vans were also used in the
Einsatzgruppe
A sector, in Estonia, Latvia, and the region of
Leningrad, 16 because a reply dated 22 June 1942 from
Rauff's department at the Reich Security Main Office reads: "The
delivery of a five-ton Saurer can be expected in the middle of next
month. The vehicle is at the Reich Security Main Office for repairs and
minor alterations. One hundred meters of hose will be
supplied." 17

A letter dated 13 July announced, "The gas van Pol 71463 is ready.
It will be sent to Riga with its driver." 18

Crowell's argument "huts are not vans" is specious. The letter does
not specify that the gassing devices will be constructed in the
shelters, nor does it explain whether the two are related (apart from
being, presumably, used in the same camp or same region). Even if the
letter had requested stationary gas chambers specifically, such as
those Brack's office had constructed for the euthanasia program, it
would not be surprising and certainly not contradictory if, between
October and December, someone had proposed and enacted an alternate
plan. The Wetzel-Lohse letter is a request for people to get in touch,
not a design specification. It is even marked as a "draft."

4. Finally - and so unequivocally that perhaps the previous three
points are superfluous - Crowell has overlooked the phrase "eliminated
with the Brackian remedy" ("mit den Brackschen Hilfsmitteln
beseitigt"). It is unambiguous. With the aid of Brack's gassing
apparatus, the Jews will be "beseitigt" - abolished, done away with.

There can be no denying this, except by Crowell's dishonest method
of ignoring it. He fails to quote the letter, fails to
mention this line, and then is free to write an outrageous lie:
"...this same document has been occasionally put forth as evidence of a
homicidal gassing program, even though there is no material or
documentary support for that interpretation...."

There can be no question about the validity and meaning of this
document. Those Jews who can work will be "transported for labor in the
east." Those who cannot will remain - not to be massacred by shootings
in public, but to be "done away with" using the "gassing devices" which
will be put together by the people from the euthanasia program. Later
testimonies confirm the devices, vans, were actually constructed and
used.

310. The non existence of the Riga gas chambers has been noted by
all revisionists, although the traditionalist Fleming, Gerald,
Hitler and the Final Solution, UC Press, 1987, makes a
connection between this memo and gassing vans, but "huts" are not
"vans."

2. (This footnote added Feb. 27, 1999.) Upon
further examination of Crowell's sources, it seems he is not correct.
The Unterkünfte are simply barracks, and his assumption that they
are "Labor Service huts" based on just one document. In fact it is the
document cited above: "Genormte, zerlegbare Rohrleitungsnetze für
die gesundheitstechnischen Anlagen der ortsveränderlichen
Unterkünfte des Reichsarbeitdienstes," or:

"Standardized, Disassemblable Electrical Piping Connections for the
Health-Technical Installations of the Relocatable Barracks of
the State Labor Service."

He has read an article on barracks of the State Labor Service, and
concludes that there were no barracks used in Hitler's Germany
except by the State Labor Service. Of course this is wrong.
"Unterkünfte" appear in other contexts as well, e.g. in the
extermination camp.

This could be a deliberate attempt to deceive, but instead I believe
it is just sloppy jumping to conclusions. Crowell is not fluent in
German; he has read one document that describes some barracks and now
believes he is an expert on them. A little learning is a dangerous
thing.

16. With the consolidation of the front in the sector of the
northern armies toward the end of October 1941, Einsatzgruppe A was
subdivided, and its Einsatzkommandos were placed under the command of
the local headquarters of the Security Police and the SD.